Medication - When, How and Why
When do we start medications?
“It depends on numerous things. It depends on the person, their preferences, how high the blood pressure is, and if they have already got problems from high blood.”
- General Practitioner
Consult your GP further with regards to your individual health.
How do we monitor these medications?
“Patients would need to have baseline bloods done before they can start to take blood pressure medication. They may also need a blood test taken if the dose of their medication is to be changed. Also, being on certain medications may mean that patients have to attend regular blood tests, for example if they are taking an ACE inhibitor.”
- Pharmacist
Side effects?
“All medicines regardless if they are for hypertension or pain relief, all have side effects, which are important to report to your GP, if you experience them.”
- Pharmacist
What do we give?
“What we give depends on the person’s age and ethnic background, influencing the type of tablets we use, because they work better for some people than others. Each tablet is individualised, so there is no way of knowing which tablet is best for each person other than trial and error and that's a lot of how medicine works - we try something and see if it works. If it doesn't work, we might try something else but often with blood pressure, it's a cumulative effect. This means that each tablet adds to the benefit of the previous one, and so patients can be on two or more medications at a time. It depends on how high your blood pressure is.”
- General Practitioner
“Typically, a patient would be started on an ACE inhibitor (e.g. ramipril) or a calcium channel blocker (e.g. amlodipine) if they were Afro-Caribbean for example. This is because there is evidence that this medication is more effective in the Afro-Caribbean population than an ACE inhibitor.”
- Pharmacist
“There are different stages of hypertension as well. At each stage you would be stepped up in terms of treatment plan. Also, with regards to the medicines you may feel like they aren’t doing anything in terms of having an effect on your body, but they are working in the background.”
- Pharmacist